Re: Lubuntu on a Powebook G4 15" 1.67Ghz

In my experiences Lubuntu loves G4 chips. It's the only Ubuntu family member I would ever put on a G4. I have five G4 towers and it runs great on all of them. One of my blog readers has a PowerBook the same as yours and his sound worked in everything but VLC for some reason. His wifi needed a fix to get working though.

On all my G4 towers along with a G3 tower with a G4 upgrade the sound works perfectly out of the box. I don't use wifi at all myself.

Here are a couple links that point directly to fixes for these two issues if you happen to encounter them. Both are from the PowerPC FAQ on the Ubuntu PowerPC Wiki.

Re: Lubuntu on a Powebook G4 15" 1.67Ghz

I have Lubuntu on an older model and Lubuntu runs well, including the wireless. But it is likely a different model / brand of wireless interface. Lately there has been a little weirdness with certain graphics cards during the installation, but just during the installation, so if you run into a problem then it is fixable.

Re: Lubuntu on a Powebook G4 15" 1.67Ghz

Hey guys,

Thanks for the feedback!

Not having much luck so far..... initially the Live CD boots into a desktop with graphics glitches and the colours garbled. Used the "live video=ofonly" command at Yaboot to get past the graphics issues but the live CD just hangs at a black screen after attempting to boot.

Re: Lubuntu on a Powebook G4 15" 1.67Ghz

It sounds like you're using 12.10 from the results you're explaining. On PowerPC at least it isn't 100% usable yet and I would recommend using 12.04 for month or two while the quirks get worked out by the community developers. The PowerPC builds are community maintained vs. the x86 builds that are officially supported. This means that fixes take longer.

If you still want to try installing 12.10 simply enter this command at the yaboot promt when booting the 12.10 iso:

live video=radeonfb:1024x768-32@60

Replace the 1024x768 with your screens default resolution which would be either 1280x864, 1440x900 or 1440x960 depending on which 15" 1.67 model you have.

I also wrote an install guide on my blog which is based on 12.04 for now if you need any guidance. It's a very easy install but there are some default things that don't work properly on the PowerPC versions. I explain these workarounds. The guide can be found here if you're interested.

Re: Lubuntu on a Powebook G4 15" 1.67Ghz

This will freeze or give you a blank screen. You will have to judge blind when the machine has finished booting which can be longer than you think. Type the command (you won't see what you type):

modprobe nvidiafb

Text should now appear on the screen. You can now start the desktop with the "sudo start lightdm" command.

12.04 installs almost never mess up and boot to the live desktop without issue. I have done at least 45-50 12.04 installs on about 20 different Macs and none of them needed anything but the live command to startup and install.

Why do you assume that the original poster will have those issues? From my experiences he won't.

Re: Lubuntu on a Powebook G4 15" 1.67Ghz

Originally Posted by powerpcliberation

12.04 installs almost never mess up and boot to the live desktop without issue. I have done at least 45-50 12.04 installs on about 20 different Macs and none of them needed anything but the live command to startup and install.

Why do you assume that the original poster will have those issues? From my experiences he won't.

[/QUOTE] galvatron wrote

Hey guys,

Thanks for the feedback!

Not having much luck so far..... initially the Live CD boots into a desktop with graphics glitches and the colours garbled. Used the "live video=ofonly" command at Yaboot to get past the graphics issues but the live CD just hangs at a black screen after attempting to boot.

Any ideas?? [/QUOTE]

if you have like me then you need do things to get live cd to work and if you install you need to do some too (xorg.conf yaboot.conf etc)

its good that you have installed 20 mac with out trubble but if look
in ubuntu forum and others forums then you see some that have problem with Xorg it depends on the video card, as the current Mac has and there are too many types of old and new, and of course how the core is set

and i belive 12.04 Lubuntu and Ubuntu 12.04 live cd is two diffrent kernel settings

Re: Lubuntu on a Powebook G4 15" 1.67Ghz

Originally Posted by powerpcliberation

12.04 installs almost never mess up and boot to the live desktop without issue. I have done at least 45-50 12.04 installs on about 20 different Macs and none of them needed anything but the live command to startup and install.

Why do you assume that the original poster will have those issues? From my experiences he won't.

Thanks for the tip! I've downloaded 12.04 so Im gonna have a go at installing that. Would it work better if I upgraded to 12.10 from within 12.04?